What Is the Meaning of the Word History - Essay Example

Writing: The Lens Essay My search for the meaning of the word “History” By Sameed Musvee On August 26, 2006, the first day of orientationat Columbia University in New York City, the campus filled with proud parents and other family members. The excitement and enthusiasm of these people, who come to see their children go off to college, was almost tangible. The students attempted to mingle and meet with each other in hopes of finding new friends. My eyes caught sight of a boy in the distance as he looked nervously about. He appeared hesitant to initiate contact. I walked up to him and introduced myself. When he asked me where I was from, I suddenly felt a loss for words as my mind flew back to the past as if to track the path to my roots. Every human being possesses an urge to link to his roots; while in some the urge may be conspicuous, in others it is dormant. Jamaica Kincaid’s writings always manifest her deep yearning to connect to her roots. However, this desire of hers is most evident in her essay, “In History.” In this work she states that “her history began when Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492.” By this she implies that the discovery of America played a significant role in molding her life and career as a writer. Throughout her essay, however, Kincaid provides subtle hints of her African descent. Thus Kincaid’s work, which is an attempt to trace her history, can be used as the Lens to view my exploratory endeavors into my history. I view this as an attempt to track my history as the knowledge I gained distorted my original notion that I was from India, but I now believe I came from another country. However, while Kincaid doesn’t succeed as much as she would have liked, in tracking her roots, I have been able to identify my origins back to the town where my real ancestors had lived. Kincaid’s ancestors sailed to America in a ship, whereas parents traveled to US in an airplane. While Kincaid’s ancestors were forced to leave Africa to serve people in Antigua my parents came to America on their own free will in search for opportunity. Despite our different paths to America, I find myself connected to Kincaid because the common thread of a lack of accurate knowledge about our history runs through the fabric of our present. As for me, my history began in California; at least I am pretty certain it did. However, similar to Kincaid’s history, there is something deeper there, the impact of which I felt only when my family decided to return to India. The major difference between me and Kincaid is that while she re-tracked her history from an alien land to her native land, in my case the process was reversed. I began looking for my history after returning from abroad to the native land of my parents; yet my family’s origin was not in this land. A long week in the school didn’t deter me from waking up early on that Saturday morning. As I headed for the breakfast table my parents were engaged in a heated conversation about the disputed move. The move, my father argued, would be in the best interest of the children. Despite my mother’s vehement protests he held his ground that it will not only allow them to reconnect to their roots but also enable them to learn more about their history. History has now become a familiar word that leaves me speechless. Did my history not begin here in the United States? What history? I demanded to know what my parents were talking about. That ended their debate; but a month later, after repeated protests and heated arguments, I found myself bidding goodbye to my close friends as I hesitantly boarded a plane to India. This, in fact, was the first step in knowing my actual origin. Unlike Kincaid, I was able by this journey to embark on a trip that would finally take me to the land of my ancestors. Landing at Chennai International airport, I began to study the new faces. I could see that they bore some resemblance to me. I recalled Kincaid’s phrase, “all who look like me” (1). However, I thought that my situation was dissimilar to Kincaid’s meaning as I found myself culturally different and alienated from these people, whereas Kincaid was probably similar to her people. I wondered at the strange accents and weird languages these people spoke. Their clothes looked odd. I had never seen such garments in any department store in the United States; perhaps I would come across such apparel in a costume store in the United States. In this new world called India, I felt estranged though it was my so called ‘homeland’. Reluctantly, I stepped off the aircraft and entered into this unfamiliar realm. In doing so, I opened a door into my history and closed a door on my past. But ironically, it was a process that would ultimately take me through an inner door to the threshold of the sanctum sanctorum that was my actual native place; a town where my family’s origin could be tracked. The days I spent in India, a country rich in history, philosophy and culture, and known for its architectural monuments, I began to understand my heritage in its complete meaning and implications. My past, which was just a flimsy façade veiling my true identity, faded away in the exhilaration of exciting experiences I went through in this country. Here, I could live through what my ancestors had lived through, evoking in me a sense spirituality that this country stood for. My parents enrolled me in eighth grade in a school where children learned physics and chemistry as early as the sixth grade. As I adjusted to a new system of education, I found myself acclimatizing to my surroundings and adapting to a different but exquisite way of life. I felt my transformation akin to that of Kincaid’s experience where she sustains, “her intimate connection to her home land.” But for all these vehemence, her attempt only seems to have accomplished a rewriting of her ‘known history’ and not her ‘real history’. It was not until summer break the following year, did I finally discover my true roots. My attempt to learn more about my history became an attempt of rewriting my history, as I learned about my roots. It made me question the fact that though I came from India I believed that I was from another country. My family decided to go on a soul searching mission to learn more about our ancestry. I found myself anxiously pouring over countless manuscripts, scanning ravenously through numerous of text books on ancient India. On a bright and sunny day when the temperature crossed 40 degrees Celsius, I made an astounding discovery linking my future to my past. I learned that my family’s history did not begin in Southern India where we now resided. It had begun deep in the drought filled deserts of Northern India, in a small settlement called Kutch, a town which was renamed during the British rule. This brought about a whole new set of complications; I had always believed I was from southern California and my history had begun in the warm sunny beaches of Orange County. Living in south India I had often been overwhelmed with the abundance of relatives living in the vicinity and was under the false assumption that I belonged to this region especially since my great grandfather had once held the esteemed title of Sheriff of Chennai. Once again my strongly held beliefs were changed as now I learned that I had indeed come from Northern India. Or was there just more to it? As I began discovering a new version of my history and a brand new past, I was immediately filled with the urge to explore this latest beginning. Consequently, I traveled to the small city in a small desolate township, which had now become a bustling metropolis. I knocked on the doors of houses searching in vain for the old villager elder named Khazi, pronounced Katzi. He was responsible for maintaining the records of immigrants in the area for births, deaths and marriages etc in the local district before India’s independence. Subsequently the newly formed government took control of such issues. The Khazi’s home and his treasure trove of knowledge lay forgotten and lost. I spent the first few days in vain looking for him. Despite my inability to obtain any information about him I persisted and eventually it paid off when I located him. Thus, while Kincaid’s journey into her past is more of a matter of self-assertion and emphasis on her feminism, my journey seems to have accomplished its real objective to a greater extent. I entered into the rickety hall of this time-honored custodian of history with mixed feelings of anticipation and apprehension. In his abode I noticed many note books with dog-eared, yellowish pages that contained the history of Kutch dating back to the period before British conquests. I then learned of the manner in which my ancestors had arrived in India years ago from a city in Persia in pursuit of trade interests in spices the source of wealth in those days. They settled in this new land which had immense potential for natural resources that offered great trading opportunities. The British invasion forced my ancestors to flee northern India abandoning their homes and take refuge in southern India. I left the Khazi’s home that day with a closer insight into my roots: yet my confusion remained. There were more questions new than the answers I received. I felt an overpowering sense of intense connection to my roots as my knowledge of my history was enriched, while at same time it felt like I am yet to learn many things. My ancestors in fact had come from Persia, whereas all the while I believed that I was from India. This new found knowledge left me baffled and perplexed. This was different from the dilemma that Kincaid had faced. Kincaid’s essay is an attempt to write a history of her and the people who look like her which strives to be different from the history that text books depict. While Kincaid’s attempt to rewrite her history is different from my desire to connect to my roots, viewing my essay through Kincaid’s Lens allows me to view my search as an attempt to rewrite my history. When it ended up I feel my history is more from Persia than from India. Thus perhaps I may not have been able to pin point the source of my origin; but I have been able to walk on the soil where the roots of my family had belonged; while Kincaid cannot make, in any definitive terms, such a claim. This reverie into my history abruptly ended as a person jostled me from behind to find a seat to watch President Bollinger’s much anticipated opening speech. My new acquaintance looked at me in a perplexed fashion and asked “Did you hear me?” “Yes,” I replied. “But my history is complicated. I am not certain where I am from.” Where does my history begin? Where do I hail from? These questions, I hope will someday be answered. But for now I remain uncertain how to respond when I hear the word `history’. Like Kincaid’s view, did her history begin in Antigua in 1492 when Columbus discovered the New World? Did my history begin in California my birthplace or am I from India or Persia? For now this puzzle remains unsolved. Inevitably when people question where I am from I am forced to respond with a simple indecisive statement – “I am not sure.” Should I say California - my birthplace? Or should I mention my ancestral home in India where I lived for five years. . I am forced to think what Kincaid would call my history and what happened to people like me. Would she say that I am from India, Persia America? Would she classify me as Indian as I look like an Indian, or should Persia, my new homeland takes precedence? But I could definitely state that my family’s roots are originally found in that small town; at least so far back at my genealogy that I had been able to trace. Work Cited Jamaica Kincaid: Major Themes (Paragraph 2). 10 Feb. 2007 Read More